


euphonious

by NoOneFrUkingCares



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: (I hope), Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Comfort, Cultural Differences, Fish out of Water, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I abuse water metaphors, M/M, Magic, Magical Realism, Mental Breakdown, Metaphors, Not outright stated relationship, Platonic Relationships, Singing, Sirens, Water, Water metaphors, and it's not really explicit, he gets better tho!, i use a lot of metaphors, what does magical realism even mean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:42:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25303987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoOneFrUkingCares/pseuds/NoOneFrUkingCares
Summary: :(of sound, especially speech)pleasing to the earSiren magic is meant to hurt humans, drive those without magic to insanity with their voices, attack vulnerable minds. So Luhan, a siren who isn't yet able to keep the volatile parts of his magic under control, needs to learn how to rein it in before he hurts someone else.
Relationships: Do Kyungsoo | D.O & Lu Han, Lu Han & Wu Yi Fan | Kris, Lu Han/Wu Yi Fan | Kris
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9
Collections: November Rain Fest Round 2





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt NR2110
> 
> Fun fact: I tried out a new writing style here! 
> 
> Not as fun fact: I will not be using this writing style in the future because it was An Adventure (for me writing).
> 
> Big thank you to:  
> the mods, who deserve better (and a raise)  
> the prompter for such a beautiful idea  
> my [beta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kei_song), who made this into something readable instead of whatever it was when it first hit the page  
> Luhan and Kris for releasing Coffee, bop of the year  
> Luhan for having an amazing voice (even if it's so calming I use it to fall asleep and as a result have fallen asleep several times over the course of the making of this fic)  
> Junmyeon for releasing Self-Portrait, specifically Starry Night  
> Yixing for releasing the first part of Lit, specifically H20,  
> and while I'm at it, might as well just thank EXO for existing.

Professor Chung scrolls through the email one more time, fishing for the details that seem to escape his mind too easily.

It wasn’t his choice to be the designated greeter for the newest transfer student, nor was it the administration’s, as everyone with a slightly sound mind had long agreed that Professor Nam fit in the role far better than most anyone else could, kindness slipped on over her cute cardigans. But after she had fallen ill, it seems like the little apartment he had chosen for its proximity to campus has actually backfired on him quite a bit, as it made him the next best option.

So now he waits by the front gates. Waits for this college student who should have long arrived, though estimated times are rarely to be trusted, so he decides to give it a few more minutes.

The sound of a car slowing near this far too busy road has him springing to his feet from this drained green chair, but this time Professor Chung is finally saved from the humiliation of seating himself down once more, watching his newest pupil step out of the nondescript grey murder weapon others call a car. 

He dresses loosely, as if planning to float away with the sea breeze that just barely crawls to the steps of the school. His jacket is open, and the yellow shirt underneath draws the eye as honeybees to nectar. One simple grey suitcase holds all that he brings, unless the flying deathtraps others like to refer to as planes have lost his others, and the driver is thanked with the simple gesture of a bow and gratitude.

Technology comes far, but clearly not far enough to properly reflect details, nor the perception of magic, no matter what the advertisements claim. That excuse would be what he uses to excuse the breathlessness of the boy’s beauty, a breath-stealing visage that had not shone through in the few images sent to help him recognise the stranger.

When Professor Chung pushes open the glass door to step out and usher the newest charge in from the cold, it seems like the wind is playing favourites, ruffling the student’s hair but not his own. Any attempt at describing his features would read like a statement from an art dealer talking about a Renaissance sculpture, so Professor Chung decides to just step aside from the glamour and into the role of mentoring tour guide. 

It does not help in dulling his student’s brilliance, but merely positions him better to see how the barely there glimmer of magic shines his hair. 

“Um, are you Luhan?” Professor Chung stumbles slightly over his words and the steps, carefully placing his feet down so he does not fall. Perhaps his words were better placed than his feet, unless the email lies, which would create a problem for which Professor Chung has no solution.

Luhan nods, two gentle lowerings and rasings of his head as if considering if it was really what he means to convey. At least Professor Chung is now sure of his affiliation.

“Great! I’m Professor Chung, and I should be your advanced hydrodynamics professor.” The polite thing is to offer a handshake, and since Professor Chung knows little more than what would be polite, he does. Luhan, already a good student, takes the offering of niceties, and they shake quickly. “And it should usually be Professor Nam doing this, but she fell sick a few hours ago, so I am going to act as a tour guide.”

Luhan tilts his head, expressing far more than expected with the action, a move containing bewilderment in the form of a fully formed question. Professor Chung agrees with the confusion, as tour guides should be students, but school administrations trying to play up to the wealthy, who are the only ones who would be able to transfer into this school this time of year, knows quite no bounds. As long as the flow of capitalism also reaches him, he has few complaints.

“Ah, since you’re transferring in, you missed the beginning of the year and the settling in with your department, so the administration decided it would be nice to have one of your teachers help slightly with the settling in process. So I’m going to show you around and tell the others to be nice, alright? Any other questions?” Professor Chung explains, taking the suitcase as the weight of someone who has spent too long in travel.

Luhan shakes his head. Easily complying, he follows him into the main administrative building. 

“You should have my email and phone number from the email, so if you ever need help, ask me. If you need to see me in person, my office hours are 10 to 1 in the afternoon and 6 to 7 in the evening. I’ll find you a map in a bit, and the information is all in the syllabus that I sent you. You got the email, right?” Professor Chung keeps speaking, wondering if the need to fill the silence that Luhan leaves out far too much would be considered an instinct or not. Silent students are not necessarily bad students, just far too unpredictable ones. 

Luhan nods once more, hands slipping into the safety of his pockets as they pass through these ostentatious halls, maintained to be the first thing that the possible sources of money referred to as students would see. 

Whispers and looks trail behind them too comfortably as Professor Chung tries to lead them out and towards the dorms as fast as socially appropriate. Far too many people take Luhan’s appearance as an opportunity for speculation, though it seems like Luhan has few concerns regarding that, trying to catch details from around him first and asking later. 

“This is the fastest way to the dorms, but not the one I’m supposed to show you since it doesn’t go through the front entrance. I’ll show you the one drawn on the map during the tour later, alright?” Professor Chung relieves the map holder of one of its items, slipping it to Luhan as he pulls open one of the doors that leads them back outside onto one of the paved stone paths on campus.

“Uh-huh.” Crackly with disuse and barely audible over the bird’s chirping, Luhan accepts the map with the first sounds he has made since arrival. Even the way he walks seems to be with the sound stolen, floating over the usually amplifying tiles. Well, they haven’t accepted a member of the dead in a while, but Luhan could be one of any number of those with magic, though Professor Chung is not exactly insistent on knowing which. Silence lingers for a reason, and ominously, it lingers far too closely to Luhan.

No new noises arise as they walk down the path, though they do brush shoulders with several other individuals. Trying to keep up his facade of hospitality, Professor Chung pulls them over to other pupils for introductions, and though Luhan does all the polite and correct motions, he doesn’t open his mouth even once more. 

Only when his river nymph trio giggle at Luhan that he makes an expression other than mandated blankness, finally parting his lips, but he immediately regains control and instead purses his lips. Guess not.

Not even when the dryad daughter of the gardener offers him a crown of blossoms does Luhan proceed to verbally thank her, though he does offer the best appreciation he can in the circumstances. A hand to the heart, a bow to his knees, and a wide-eyed little girl laughing in happiness as they continue on. 

The circlet floats above Luhan’s black locks, their slight rock back and forth with his movement mimicking gentle ocean waves as they cut their way to the dorms. 

Their course to these dorms is hypnotising in its repetition, so much so that before he knows it, the start of their walk is a hazy memory and they’re walking up the stairs to Luhan’s room. He should have a roommate, but it would be a turn of the die if they were to meet at this moment. 

“Your dorm room should be at the end of the hall. I don’t know if your roommate is in yet, but he should have left your side of the room clear.” Professor Chung explains, and then sneaks a look at the lone suitcase. “If you ever need someone to drive you to a place to shop for things for your room, you can call me.” 

Luhan smiles, the first one used on campus, and while it is a nice action, Professor Chung is utterly hit with a sensation of change, of something rushing away, revealing meters of clear sand. 

A roar builds in the distance, swelling whine in his ears as he stares down at the emptiness, feeling, knowing that something is going to happen. But he just can’t figure out what.

Luhan parts his lips and - 

“Truly, thank -” 

everything hits. Rushing blackness pouring down and twirling around swelling curves that are opening up, up, up. Pulled limbs and bodies flung forwards and backwards and around and nowhere. Pushing the leftovers forth through places that should not be pushed in tandem,

“you,” 

dissolved into knees made of bones and joints. Blue strangulation on bluer lips with too many hues unseen and untold for naked eyes that are not naked enough. Red bruises and pain and lives and creations sinking under black waters. Darkened and blackened waves unwaveringly gone and disappeared without listening to the frozen protests. Not even a no. 

“Professor Chung.”

A realisation of nothing but something. Everything in turning, all the secrets there never was and had kept, wishes of the dead and secrets engraved within dust through roots and trees following ways of sprouting and growing and speaking and the dead orate though the living do not as life work unlike this but physics does and will not do.

Tsunami. 

“Help!”

Not. Give up a voice. Your voice. Given knowledge, no, right there.

Odysseus he is, and Penelope he waits. Burned eyes, burned mind, burned, quenched, thirst, he desires more and more and less and nothing and nothing and everything and things don’t make there’s no there is fingers trembling more than senses please no stop make it sounds 

Voice.


	2. Chapter 2

Professor Chung was right. There is an empty side of the room that Luhan is ushered into, the one who must be his roommate pushing him in, acting as the guard putting away the prisoner, protecting others from his damage. 

Luhan is so, utterly, and wretchedly retrospectively sorry. 

“Sit.” The voice of his new roommate orders, and Luhan obeys. The blank white mattress is not hard but not soft, and the absence of a gentle pulsing force always rocking him back and forth is almost enough to make him cry. 

“You’re a siren?” The voice continues, moving away with his roommate to the neatly organised desk against the other wall. 

“Are you?” 

Luhan was so busy pulling close the voice draped over him like a shock blanket that he had barely any time to register the words, and it’s only with the unimpressed look back at him speaking of dealing with far worse cases that Luhan blinks and sorts through the question. 

Luhan nods, afraid to shake too much or the comforting voice may slip off. There’s a certain amount of trust he was given when he left home for this life-changing chance, along with not a small amount of money and gifts. Within the first 10 minutes of arriving, he has managed to already spend all the trust in himself.

“I’m not human, so you don’t need to worry about wrecking me.” His roommate declares, gentle clinking accompanying his words. Immediately, Luhan relaxes slightly more into the safety blanket voice. 

“Will-” his voice, infallible as it is, fails, and Luhan coughs pathetically to get it to work again. Why is air so harshly revealing of the flaws that wish to hide? “Will Professor Chung be alright?”

“Aren’t you supposed to know that better than me?” His roommate scoffs, and Luhan falls silent once more. He is supposed to know better, he should’ve never opened his dumb mouth in the first place, especially with the knowledge of how volatile it is.

“They said they’ll keep us updated.” There’s a mug in his hand now, having appeared during the moments Luhan was wrapped up in the soothing way his roommate’s voice flows, trying to force his way back through the smog to react. 

Instead of drinking, his roommate crosses the room in a few strides, and then Luhan’s hands are parted, and a warm mug is pressed in. The spoon quickly gets drawn out, tapping twice against the ceramic side to declare its conclusion, before slipping away, following the curve of his roommate’s arm.

“Drink it. You’ll feel better.” Perhaps Luhan was never the siren, hands following his roommate’s orders so easily, pulling the mug up, tilting it as a gentle kiss against his lips, and a soothing medicine slipping down his throat with rejuvenation. It’s… the brush of a sea otter’s sleek tail against polished scales, the call of a whale to another far unseen, the touch of a silent wish running along the sandy floor, a mini-flame run down his body, and Luhan is not shocked to find it does make him feel better, because there is no way that this voice could be wrong.

“It’s some chamomile tea. For soothing your nerves.” There’s a shuffling that Luhan notices far too late, because he sinks too far into the tangible warmth of the cup and tea, and his roommate leaves, escapes, locking Luhan away in the vast emptiness of white sheets and white walls, mocking in their wish for substance. Air suffocates in its dryness, sucking the very moisture out of Luhan’s body, preying, grasping, taking.

“Take another sip.” His roommate reappears, determined set in his brows strong enough to weather a hurricane.

Perhaps Luhan takes too long before moving, because the siren-like command comes once again. “Well? Drink.” His hand acts, a repetitive motion of lifting, mouth opening, swallowing, and feeling the way liquid so naturally slips down in the way it should. 

“Did you bring anything besides this?” A familiar burden is brandished at Luhan, and the suitcase his father told him he would need is brought out, pushed towards Luhan like a pet towards a forgetful owner. 

The metal handle is still too cold, denial straightforwardly directed towards Luhan. What else could he have probably brought besides his life and expectations in hand? “No.”

His roommate’s eyes flash through a range of expressions, settling on something stern, akin to the sun regarding him floating on top of the waters instead of under, harshly disdainful, yet also warm, indecipherable in the way that stars are. But unlike the sun, his roommate has a voice, and uses it to explain away his eyes.

“Have you spent much time on land? It’s not your first visit, but you haven’t spent too long out of the water, have you?”

Luhan shakes his head, not loath to admit a fact. “My dad does deals on land, and he usually takes me with him, but not for long.”

“Take another sip.” Another mouthful slips down, washing smooth the growing agitations, and Luhan’s roommate sits on his own chair, a ruler borrowing a throne. “The water spirits have their own water dorms, but since you’re not too used to things, they decided to stick you in a standard dorm with a land being. If you want, I’ll call and get them to switch you somewhere more familiar.”

A choice of silver pearl or aquamarine turtle, but Luhan doesn’t have the right to ask for a change. “It’s alright. I’m here to learn about different circumstances, and I’ve slept in beds before.”

“Drink some more.” Maybe it’s a sort of reset button, brushing away tangled cobwebs of emotions with each sip, activated by one and one only. Luhan does not care what his roommate would potentially do, as long as Luhan can still hold onto him like barnacles searching for shelter. 

“Thank you.” The words slip out like fat stones, rumbling roughly and clashing against each other in a haste to hit the ground. They are the harshest words Luhan has ever let slip, and he wishes to retract them quick, replace them with better sounding ones that are more well-fit of the care that Luhan was shown and must compensate.

But his roommate doesn’t react like expected, being pelt with such rocks of sound. Instead, he nods, a silent acceptance even if he explains not his actions. 

“You’ve slept in beds before, but in hotels and stuff right?” 

Luhan nods. Hotel rooms are suffocating and stale places, cold and harsh disguised with overly puffed up and covered items. They require air-related words, words that have never been truly revealed in their ugliness until experienced with air within lungs.

A sigh is all that remains of his roommate disappearing through a door, at least until he comes back out with an actual blanket the brown of an otter draped over his shoulders. “Hotels are pre-made so the beds would already have blankets and sheets and pillows. The school’s stupid in that they want us to bring our own stuff, and unless there’s nothing in this suitcase but sheets, I don’t think you brought any, right?”

Ah. More and more wrongs stacked on top of each other, how inadequate Luhan arrives. The only thing he can muster up is a sad comparison, “We don’t use sheets. What are they for?”

“You put it on top of the mattress to add a layer between you and the mattress. You can borrow my spare stuff, but you’ll probably have to go shopping for your own bedding later. Drink some more.” He explains, patient and steady.

Mechanically, Luhan drinks as the blanket flutters down gently, a whirling and spread piece of cloth that encloses Luhan in a crowd of warmth.

“What’s your name, siren?” Round eyes greet Luhan’s as he pushes the blanket out of his hair, daring him to pull away.

“Lu Han.” The simple introduction dries up his mouth, and finally out from the influence of that brilliant voice, Luhan sips on his own.

“I’m Do Kyungsoo.” Kyungsoo, a good name for a savior. “You’re older than me, so should I call you hyung?”

“Hyung?” The distinctions of language continue to be fascinating.

Kyungsoo nods. “It’s an honorific for an older male friend.”

Luhan bites back the protest that there’s nothing to honour about him in exchange for the last description. Friend. Yes, he can be a friend.

“Is there an honorific for a younger male friend, then?” Luhan asks, because no one should be honoured as much as Kyungsoo.

“No, there’s only honorifics for older or more respected people.” Kyungsoo explains, textbook calm answers. “So while I could call you Han-hyung, you can just call me Kyungsoo, if you want.”

“There’s no need for me to be referred to with an honorific if I have not earned one, but you can if you want to.” Honorifics are for those who earn them, but perhaps the distinction between cultures would make it necessary in this language that Luhan has barely mastered. Further than honorifics is the implication of friend, which sounds far more important.

Kyungsoo nods, arranging the blanket around his shoulders, nudging in place the comforting weight of his voice over Luhan’s body. With confident hands, he removes the crown offered by that little girl, with its crushed petals, browned and dying from the stress having forced upon it. “Alright, Han-hyung.”

With a single breath, the battered crown blooms again, radiant colours among soft peach and plum petals, reborn even after their death as Kyungsoo replaces the crown on Luhan’s head, once again undeservedly crowned.

“I’m a dryad. Since I know you’re a siren, it should be fair that you know who I am as well.” 

The crown sprouts, flowers tumbling down and entwined with Luhan’s hair, yet another kindness that Kyungsoo offers and Luhan has no way to repay.

“You are far too kind to me, Kyungsoo.” 

The silence the words leave is too tense for a simple statement, not calculated, as Luhan’s silences tend to be. It is instead alarming, because this silence of Kyungsoo is not comforting, as his actions and his words are the true comfort. Luhan obeys Kyungsoo’s long-standing order and takes a sip of his tea.

“You need someone to take care of you, Han-hyung.” Kyungsoo shakes his head in confidently playful exhaustion and the silence recovers.

“Call me Luhan.” The smile Luhan gets in return of his own offering is good enough as an agreement.

~~~

“Are you Luhan?” A shorter lady asks, voice comforting and honey-sweet in almost direct relation to the care that Kyungsoo’s provides.

Luhan nods.

At the confirmation, her smile grows, warmth quite like a cup of chamomile tea. “I’m Professor Nam, and I was technically supposed to pick you up but I got sick and the job was reassigned to Professor Chung. But I’ll show you to your first class and give you a slight tour, if you want?”

The guilt seeps in twice as quickly, an accusation in that name. He won’t try to speak again, but instead Luhan feels for the smooth crunch of paper and hard solid of pen rather than try the cold smart-device Kyungsoo taught him to use, speed being more essential at the moment for his question.

“How is Professor Chung doing?” Professor Nam parrots back the written inquiry, voice of consideration. “Oh, uh, he’s getting treated in the hospital, but he should be recovered and back soon.”

Of course, what is a blessing in water becomes nothing but a curse sung above land, How could Luhan apologise to someone who barely knows what an apology is? There is too much weight, magical weight, magical power, in Luhan’s words, all the better for his mother to hear and soar through the waters, but it becomes an unintentional weapon on land, to those who are not accustomed to such magic. 

“I’m sure he doesn’t blame you, Luhan.” Professor Nam tries, a spark of magic on her voice, sticky anemone comfort trying to soothe. “Everyone slips up once or twice.”

Luhan appreciates the lies, even if they do nothing to comfort.

“So, would you like a tour of our campus? I know all the good spots to sit and study, or to even sit and hide.” Mischief taints her voice, and Luhan nods, not many other options but agree. It would not do well to keep depending on Kyungsoo for everything.

All he has to do is keep his mouth shut, on this predominantly human campus. No need to make a peep.


	3. Chapter 3

Luhan wants, no, needs desperately to open his mouth, and speak. Singing is still far too dangerous, being that it can easily project through air and the objects in air in a way that speaking thankfully does not do.

The campus is beautiful, swatches of green and brown and grey combining with the sun, which shines harsher but in a much more soothing way upon the land, creating a wonderland, diverse and beautiful with the beings that wander around it. Professor Nam steered him around to some out–of–the–way benches, gave tips about the best foods in dining areas, and introduced him to even more people that he had to just nod at, being that he had been restraining from making a sound. 

The young dryad who formed the first crown laughed at the petals in his locks, resiliently hiding even after the original source had been removed and potted as Luhan’s first decoration to liven up the blankness of his side of the room. She then offered up another wreath, sky-blue petals instead of blush-pink this time, weaving the buds among his hair before making it bloom, peeking out from the curtain that is his hair.

Luhan regrets not being able to verbally thank her for the gift yet again, but Professor Nam’s magic is only in her kindness and not her body, still so horribly horribly human, so he must refrain lest he hurt her as well. Maybe one day he can speak to this dryad without anyone around to harm. 

He only has two classes today, both in the morning due to the fact that Professor Chung’s substitute had not yet been found, and Professor Nam was gracious enough to escort him to both of them, and included a quick introduction to the others in his department. 

Perhaps it was the excitement of a new person, or the surprise of the bouquet in his hair, but Luhan had scarcely been able to take a seat before he was ambushed, or rather, surrounded completely from well-wishers wishing to know more about him. 

But being that no one was giving out their species, and the fact that it’s very probable that a great majority of them were human, Luhan couldn’t answer verbally, forced to scribble down his answers in the style that most would generously describe as “a wave wrote it while passing by.” And every word, every sentence, every reply he wanted to give were stuck being communicated by pen, stuffing up in Luhan’s throat until they’ve piled up so high they would tumble out horrifically if he was to speak. 

So Luhan flees quickly to his room, aware of the conversations he cut off part-way and the lingering stares of disdain forming as he escapes before something worse could happen.

His room isn’t empty, Kyungsoo contemplating at his desk with a pen to his cheek, as the flowers behind him overflowed their pot, a floral spill onto the desk Kyungsoo was kind enough to help him acquire. 

“Kyungsoo.” Luhan gasps out, not a second after he lifts his hand from the closed door.

“Luhan-hyung?” Kyungsoo looks up, mildly concerned. 

“I’m sorry for causing you so much trouble, with utterly everything, and I’m going to try and make it up to you if you would let me know of something that you could possibly need help with.” Luhan spits out, voice charged with siren magic. He should have asked for directions to the nearest empty pool to stick his head in and scream. “It’s all so green on campus, there are so many trees, and grass, and the sun is so beautiful and gentle, and Professor Nam lies that it’s not my fault that Professor Chung is in the hospital but it is my fault, and the dirt smells quite interesting and so do the stairs and books and people, and it’s enough to get me lightheaded at times when I bump into something particularly dry or overwhelming. There are birds that sing and I want to be able to sing like that but I can’t sing because a siren’s song is so much deadlier, especially with my voice, and this is horribly much but there are too many words that I want to say and can’t say, and are there any pools on campus or anywhere with a good amount of water and space from other people for me to sing?”

Kyungsoo pauses, clearly unprepared for the sudden onslaught of words. But it’s done it’s job, as the stuffed taste of unused magic had dissipated, and Luhan can feel the difference in his voice, calmed waves rolling gently over the air again.

Kyungsoo sighs, “Are you thirsty?”

Now that Luhan needs not worry about the ball of magic choking up his throat, piled up sea salt wrapped in gritty waves, his voice is a bit scratched, air leaving silent wounds. “Yes.”

From his desk, Kyungsoo pulls open a drawer to reveal a home of mugs. Pulling one out and pouring in steaming liquid from his thermos, he exchanges positions with Luhan, sitting Luhan down on his new seat, and watches against the wall as Luhan takes in a breath.

It’s camomile tea, soothing for his throat but not his lungs, weighing down heavily his trachea as Luhan coughs the remains up, a flowery bloom on his lungs and his head. Kyungsoo reveals himself as once again the kindest in the room by ignoring Luhan’s mistake and letting him take a proper sip.

“You should buy a water bottle and some camomile tea.” Kyungsoo suggests, noting it down as a reminder and slapping it onto the desk Luhan sits at, barely missing the bend of his elbow.

“Okay.” Luhan tucks the note away as Kyungsoo regards the overflow of flowers on the smooth wood surface and ultimately does nothing regarding them. 

“So what’s the problem?” Kyungsoo taps his own throat in place of needing to ask the full question.

“I need to speak, but I can’t.” Luhan admits, sipping on camomile. 

“Luhan-hyung, I’m not a siren, so if there’s something wrong with your magic you’re going to have to spell it out.” Kyungsoo urges.

Luhan nods, trying to find the best way to lay out the magic of his voice, find an explanation for the unexplainable.

“There’s magic in a siren’s voice, which is why siren’s song exists when we sing, because most of the magic is concentrated into a melody. Other times, when we naturally speak, shout, hum or whisper, there’s still magic, but not in a high enough quantity to create the effects of a siren’s song. The issue is that even that little amount of magic is too much for a non-magical or human mind to handle, so if I speak to a human, they may be driven mad, like I accidentally did to Professor Chung.” Luhan confesses, assigning Kyungsoo as the jury for his sins. 

“I’m not exactly sure of the process, but as soon as I wish to speak, my words would be charged with slight magic rather than when I actually speak, so when I don’t say something that I’m thinking of saying, I accumulate more magic in my vocal chords that I can actually feel, which serves to make the next words I do say more potent with magic. Every word I think of saying but do not say accumulates magic in my throat, until it gets to the point where I frankly need to speak or something worse would happen, but I’ve never actually gotten to that point and don’t wish to.”

“So you generate magic when you want to say something, because your words are magical.” Kyungsoo’s voice does not ask for confirmation, but Luhan gives it anyway with a nod.

“But your magic causes insanity in humans, or others without magic.” Another pause filled with a nod.

“How are you going around campus then?” Kyungsoo actually asks this time.

“I just don’t speak.” 

“But then you have a buildup of magic that makes your voice more dangerous the next time you speak, and could potentially harm you.”

Slow nods of confirmation, for what seems like quite a dangerous and tricky answer. The look of righteously exasperated anger Kyungsoo has could rival Luhan’s mother’s, when she heard that he had tried to engage sharks or nearly skipped school.

“Luhan-hyung,” the pause holds more weight than before, of unspoken anger and disappointment solidified into one word, and Luhan awaits his sentencing. “You’re not going to be able to go through the school year like this.”

“I know,” Luhan admits, another failing he realised early on, “but I don’t know how to control my voice. My teachers tell me it’s really powerful in terms of raw magic, but after the Siren’s Song Treaty was signed, no one really teaches how to hone the magic in such a way. Besides, it’s nice to be able to speak and hear the magic.” 

This sigh contains less anger and more reluctance. “Is there anyone on campus that can help you control your voice, then? I know some water nymphs and merpeople.” 

The secret of sirens belongs to and can only be harnessed by a siren. “It has to be a siren who already has control of their voice. Do you know any sirens?”

Even before Kyungsoo shakes his head, Luhan could easily predict the answer. The sea is a giving home, and lives outside of it demand too much, from the sharp clarity of gases that surround the lives, to the voices that have to be given up and shelved, all the way to the thousands of languages created by land-dwellers, not reliant on the fluidity of voice and water around them. Few sirens leave to live elsewhere, Luhan an outlier in the miraculously large data set of sirens who have lived before and live presently.

“I do know someone who might know.” Kyungsoo offers instead, checking his phone, searching for information on hand. “I’m going to lunch with him right now, so do you want to come?”

At the current moment, Luhan has only one friend and one lunch-partner to speak of, meaning no possibility of denying. “I would like nothing better.”

A disagreement blooms on Kyungsoo’s face, as well as a few new buds in Luhan’s hair, dangling far down enough to kiss against the curve of his throat. Friendship should just mean that Kyungsoo’s problem would be mostly teasing, hopefully.

~~~

“He’s a fire elemental.” Kyungsoo had warned, and Luhan was immediately captivated. 

Fire, the substance humans had dedicated their lives to, the item they had called gifted from gods, the only reason that they lived long enough to evolve into sentient creatures that now roam the earth. 

Luhan has never actually seen fire in person before, because fire burns, but it does not burn in water. And he has lived his entire life so far with water in his lungs and not a trace of the need of warmth, nothing besides the gentle push and pull of the liquid that has sustained all life. He has absolutely no idea what a fire elemental could possibly look like, but he needs to meet this fire elemental, needs like he needed to come to this land collage to learn, needs like he needed to float on the surface some days when his parents had other things to look after rather than a disobedient son.

They didn’t immediately meet the fire elemental, because they met Jongin. Jongin has a lazy and cute way about him, like a particularly small whale, or perhaps little sea otter, infinitely capable but still gentle. 

“Hyung!” Jongin calls, waving a hand from the seat he occupies, an empty table near the centre of the cafeteria. “Over here!”

Kyungsoo looks over at Luhan, a slighted look that still hands the choice entirely over to Luhan, even if he may not particularly want to make it. “My friend Jongin. He’s human. I can always just eat with him another day.”

The suspicion and assumption upon first arrival was that Luhan was not going to be able to speak during lunch anyways, but this acts as just a confirmation. Besides, it would be nice to make friends, as it seems the interactions necessary to make friends on his own are not things Luhan is currently capable of doing. Jongin also looks quite likable, at least to Luhan. There were several sea otters and whales that he had quite liked, after all, and even if Jongin isn’t quite like them, he seems close enough to appreciate.

“No, he seems nice.” Luhan reassures, hissing the words into Kyungsoo’s ear at the lowest volume that he can possibly muster while Kyungsoo still hears. It would be quite a disaster if the magic would affect any other humans sitting nearby.

Jongin is, to Luhan’s endless appreciation and delight, quite like a human sea otter, even if he tries to act like a displeased whale.

There’s a refreshing silence as Luhan sits down following Kyungsoo, as Jongin assesses the new person in front of him to figure out what his next actions could be. There’s no question of an introduction, or even one offered, giving Kyungsoo the ability to steer the conversation properly.

“This is my roommate Luhan-hyung. He just transferred in, and he’s a siren so he can’t speak in front of you.” Kyungsoo quickly explains, drawing Jongin’s attention onto him.

“Oh. It’s nice to meet you, I’m Kim Jongin.” Jongin offers a hand, which thankfully is an interaction that Luhan knows how to handle, having witnessed his father do it so many times.

He takes the hand, warm, mostly smooth besides the roughness of what must be long and repetitive activities. The next sea otter he meets must be nicknamed Jongin.

“Do you know when Chanyeol gets here?” Kyungsoo cuts in, voice a cue to stop the handshake. It still quite amazes Luhan how siren-like his voice is, with its richness and command that anyone would fall under. 

“He’s probably running late from class again,” Jongin brushes off, dismissal clear. The fire elemental, Chanyeol, gets more interesting with each word spoken in regards to him.

“I’m not that late, I just had to grab food.” Gravely, like crackling sparks consumed in videos taken of the process, the voice approaches with something, discomforting. It’s irritating, coating Luhan’s lungs and scratching at his respiratory tract, leaving mark after mark, even if the smell itself is not entirely one to dislike, as the capital smell of interesting doom. But there’s no visible darkening of smoke.

Luhan turns to view a man who burns. Who approaches with every step, fire running up and down his arms, hopping from hand to hand like dolphins toying with each other, and is utterly engulfed by flames.

What does fire feel like? If air is light and playful, water is smooth and reassuring, earth is crumbly and steady, what does fire feel like?

“You’re still last.” Jongin points out, moving aside to give Chanyeol more space and giving away the fact that their friendship borders on such familiarity and teasing.

Chanyeol’s eyes catch on Luhan, a flicker of interest that is just the reflection of flames up and down his neck, and Luhan stares back, almost uncomfortably warm with such fire right across from him. 

“Luhan-hyung, my roommate.” Kyungsoo anticipates and cuts off the oncoming question, saving Luhan from needing to answer. “He’s a siren, do you know any others?”

“That’s so rude, I haven’t even gotten to introduce myself.” Chanyeol pouts, a puppy in his actions, dolphin-like in mischief. But he’s far more fiery than a simple dolphin, perhaps shark-like in determination? “I’m Park Chanyeol, nice to meet you, Luhan-hyung.”

“Don’t make him talk, he can’t speak in public.” Kyungsoo suggests, low and more dangerous than any flame that Chanyeol could hold and not a suggestion at all.

Chanyeol’s agreement settles Kyungsoo’s protectiveness as his flames quell, reducing into a low compression, a second skin over his clothes and keeps him aglow. Star-like, Luhan had thought about fire when first learning about what stars truly are, understanding the navigation system above head from the people who don’t use stars as markers but as a science, a mystic. Truly, Chanyeol right now is star-like, seeming to be composed entirely of fire, burning gases fueled by what it consumes.

“So is there another siren at school?” Kyungsoo repeats, Jongin leaning forwards on his elbows to also star-gaze at the conversation, revolving around the outside edges but so clearly still able to input if need be.

The coating of flame on Chanyeol’s fingertips jump against his metal tray, taps or beats against the rim that send little sparks flying about, but they all sizzle and drown out in the food Chanyeol plans on consuming before Luhan could attempt to catch one. “Yeah, Yifan-hyung. He’s always really down to shoot hoops or help you study if you ask.” Chanyeol offers, the very information they’ve sought within easy to find hands.

“Do you have his number?” Kyungsoo asks, thinking of communication before Luhan could even wonder how to get in touch. 

“No, you know I lost my phone like a few days ago and haven’t replaced all my contacts yet, Soo.” Chanyeol bemoans, showing off the item in question. Unscratched, uncased, bared phone, clearly about as used as Luhan’s own device, newly given. “Right, I don’t have your number, Luhan-hyung! Can I have it?”

His smile is about as bright as his flames, another reason why it’s hard to look him in the face. Luhan nods, pulling out the requested item to hand over to Chanyeol, flames retreating to his sleeves as to not burn the frail piece of metal. 

“So is there any way to meet him?” Kyungsoo steers the topic back to the original inquiry, as Chanyeol taps on the phone, clearly more at ease than Luhan at it fitting in his hands.

“Oh yeah, he usually hangs around the basketball courts in the south, the ones directly across from the outdoor swimming pools. Go after classes are over, he’s usually the only one playing there because they’re so far from everything.” Chanyeol has a very casual way about him, yet he acts so purposefully as his own phone buzzes, a zapping hum against the metal of the table, before he cuts it off and returns the phone to Luhan. “Got it, feel free to text me at any time!”

“You say that and don’t reply when I really need you.” Jongin jokes, quick enough for Luhan to not have to bother with more than a smile of thanks before Chanyeol can draw away to a more familiar interaction.

“You wanted me to help you finish eating 31 pop-tarts at 3 am! You didn’t really need me, you could’ve eaten it yourself.” Chanyeol complains, the incredulous odds almost stupid to think about.

“No I couldn’t! I had to get Zitao to help me by promising him that I would help him with a project he was procrastinating for.” Jongin complains, building up a world of great distress where eating 31 pop-tarts would be the greatest challenge.

Kyungsoo fills in, “His dorm neighbor. Another brat.” 

_Why did you need to eat 31 pop-tarts at 3 am in the first place?_ Luhan writes, the best contribution he could offer.

“Oh, Sehun bet me.” Jongin waves off, dropping names and not connections easily. The story he tells seems almost more incredulous, hard to follow for those without proper context, and Luhan has received almost no context for anything involving this other world he resides in. So instead, he focuses on something simpler to understand.

The fire drifting around Chanyeol’s wrist is simple, dancing around with every move that he takes, rising slightly higher and lower with the tune of his voice and excitement. It’s quite pretty, a low red that naturally warns of danger, but looks so fluid, a reverse sort of trickle that flows with its own personality, a bit brighter like the hints of Chanyeol shown so far.

The flame eagerly accepts Luhan’s finger, a light but fervidly sweltering touch that is meant to pet and brush rather than truly disturb Chanyeol. It streams easily onto Luhan, licking jumps clinging like a few stubborn drops of water, and it’s so interesting how fire can feel both so feathery but so heavy.

In fact, the sensation is so strangely familiar to the tingling that starts after Luhan accidentally brushed another sea anemone while chasing after a reluctant clownfish, that it’s not until Kyungsoo’s sharp hiss that Luhan realises it hurts.

“Chanyeol, pull it back.” The flame nibbling at his fingers blinks out immediately, while his hair rustles and blooms with the phantom flames, leaving Luhan with tinged pink fingers and new pink buds among black locks, yet none of the numbness that tends to set in anywhere. Instead, it takes more, a sharpness that grows the more Luhan breathes, invisible lacerations and pricks growing in strength even as Luhan’s eyes convince him that there’s nothing there but smooth pink skin.

“Shit, I’m so sorry, I didn’t see that your arm was so close. Does it hurt?” Chanyeol adopts extreme concern, which makes sense, because it seems like the cost of burning is taking. Water gives, even if it gives too much, and fire takes, and most cannot even give a little.

“I told you that you shouldn’t have fire running up and down your arms,” Kyungsoo uses the beginning of a well-worn argument, and Luhan quickly scribbles in his notepad, handwriting a bit sharper, starting to take on tendencies of a ravaging fire.

_It’s fine, I just wanted to see how fire feels. It’s not any worse than a sea anemone sting._

“You should go run it under some cold water.” Jongin suggests as the flame retreats up to Chanyeol’s shoulders, lingering around his collar in an affectionate hug.

_Sure. Where's the nearest bathroom?_

A quick decision nonverbally later, Jongin volunteers himself, standing to indicate they should go. “I’ll show you.”

The sprig peeking over the cusp of Luhan’s ear squirms as Luhan stands, increasing to reveal two new blooms, covering Luhan’s ear to tell him there’s nothing for him to hear. Instead of obeying, he separates them from the ensemble already on his head, tucking it behind Jongin’s ear instead. It suits him, popping out the slight flush in his cheeks as Luhan tries to communicate his thanks with a small gift. 

It’s only after they’re standing in the bathroom, dark dingy and dirty despite how nice it might be compared to others, with a hand soaked in water and only a small tangle of sea salt magic on the tip of his tongue, that Jongin smirks. “Kyungsoo-hyung’s probably completely chewing out Chanyeol-hyung right now.”

Chewing? Luhan was not aware that dryads needed to consume fire in opposition to fire consuming their trees.

Jongin notices not his silent question, but does notice the wish for another drink and goes with him to buy it. Chanyeol is thankfully uneaten by the time they return, but Kyungsoo’s eyes spark, and Luhan decides some things are more needed than his concern.


	4. Chapter 4

The sun stifles a yawn and blinks by the time Kyungsoo digs Luhan out of the little enclave he found himself, a spot Professor Nam had recommended, stone seat shaded by a large tree and cut off by a little brook, the perfect idyllic spot on campus where the only one to hear him sing would be the birds. But due to the little babbles and meshed mumbles right outside, Luhan keeps his mouth shut and limited to whispers and hums, little invitations for the birds to converse with him.

“Are you a Disney princess now?” Kyungsoo announces his presence with a smile climbing up his lips as the sun settles around his temples. 

Luhan blinks at the bird on his hand, who blinks securely back at him, and does not run away. “I thought monarchies were mostly either symbolic or abolished?”

“No,” Kyungsoo opens his mouth, and the bird decides that perhaps it has better things to do than listen to an explanation of a princess. “Disney is a movie company. They’ve made a lot of movies about princesses and so there’s this idea of a Disney princess.”

Luhan nods, picking up his discarded shoes and socks as he splashes out of the little brook, flopping onto the grass to pull the discarded garments back on. “So what is a Disney princess?”

“A princess who is pretty and so nice that even animals talk to her.” 

“But I’m not a princess? Or even a girl? And I’m not pretty, and I can’t talk to birds?” Being a Disney princess seems a fairly wrong assumption on Kyungsoo’s part, surprising because Luhan had not thought Kyungsoo to be someone who would think contrarily like this.

“That’s just the general characteristic of a Disney princess, Luhan-hyung.” Kyungsoo’s exasperation makes it seem like there’s a great mistake, while Luhan sees nothing mistaken besides Kyungsoo in their circumstance. “I’m just saying that it looked like you were talking to a bird, and you are good-looking.”

“Ah, alright then.” Luhan stands, weighty as the water flops around but refuses to leave his shoes. It drags rather than elevates as it sticks close to Luhan’s skin, rather unlike water that surrounds Luhan at any other moment. 

“Ready to go find Yifan-ssi?” Kyungsoo’s feet start moving anyway, already trusting Luhan to follow along in their journey while Luhan still requires the use of a map to get around. “I don’t think it’s allowed for people to just dip their feet into the decorative streams.”

“There was no rule that said that we weren’t allowed to.” Luhan reminds, water slipping out with every step he takes. It was comforting to have a familiar sensation as he sat, no matter how discouraged it may be in handbooks.

Kyungsoo’s regard for the rules clearly barely extends to such a courtesy, and he hints at agreement, no willingness to argue the matter. 

The sun burns gold along the horizon as they walk together, further and further from the presence of others. With their backs to the general area of the dorms, the main exit, and the people that walk towards them, leaving their activities for the comfort following falling eve. 

As they approach an empty pool, last of several neatly arranged together, with water lapping that invites Luhan forwards and in, there is the metronome repetition of a bouncing ball, thack against the ground and clang against something metal, a song with harsher background scruffs and scrapes, rubber against polished concrete. A basketball player’s shadow dances alone as he plays, an ease fluidly sliding around.

This must be Yifan.

He is a flowing being, limbs long and stream-lined as he moves with the perfect push of one who expects no resistance from the substance around him, accustomed to air in his tosses and jumps rather than liquid that would push and pull. Yifan’s gaze is not pulled away from the simple orange ball even as they intrude into the territory of his court, an invisible opponent, personification of himself, demanding more attention than he can spare. For a few moments, Luhan stands, Kyungsoo an escort and bodyguard by his side, to watch the wrappings of the match, before the ball falls into Yifan’s embrace once and for all, and he turns to them.

Sweat batters down, and is easily battered away as he moves towards them, every step slow, needed, with a calm face and a calmer indication. His silken locks are as short as anyone else passed by on the streets or campus, though his expression seems meant to intimidate instead of welcome, and limbs lankier and longer when approaching. He passes as human as anything-human-without-being-born-so can be, and Luhan doubts for a moment, if this man really is a siren that could possibly say anything of assistance.

”Are you here to shoot some hoops?” 

There is immediately no reason to hold any more doubt. 

He speaks low and gruff, a steady trickle from a glass bottle poured over rocks looking jagged but feeling smooth, but there’s not a hint of magic in his tone. Clearly he has a high mastery, given the allure that all the removal of power could never take.

“No, we’re looking for you,” Kyungsoo speaks, already far too accustomed to the service as Luhan’s voice. “Are you Yifan-ssi?”

Yifan nods, intimidation softened by confusion. Or perhaps amusement, those two are always far too similar. “I did not know my study skills would be so in demand so early in the school year.”

“I don’t need help studying.” Luhan interrupts, voice crackling with each word as the magic interrupts, too much to say and not enough to be able to speak.

“Oh.” The tone shifts to magic crackling just beneath his tongue, and gathered by the surprise on Yifan’s face, he understands exactly what Luhan needs help with. “Are you new?”

To land, to this school, to thinking about your voice and magic? In all iterations of what could follow such a question, the answer turns out to be a resounding yes.

“Yeah. Can you please help me with my voice?” Luhan pleas, a slight trill on his voice that is meant to throw out a hook to catch, but Yifan is not a fish but a fisherman, and he easily side-steps the bait.

Instead, he turns to Kyungsoo, a keeper and guide, like doctors searching for adults to pass news to first. But the question is not a piece of news, it’s finding the information needed for diagnosis, “What are you?”

“Dryad.” A cirrus curls towards Luhan’s throat, threatening and protective at once, tickling with softened florets. Yifan’s eyes draw to it, dark against the starkness of his skin, and Yifan finds something to agree with.

“Ah. Are you here for emotional support…or?” The question trails, demanding others place in their own ending.

“I’m his roommate.” 

“Because as a dryad, you can withstand speaking, but you would not want to be around if he starts singing. Plenty of merfolk wouldn’t be able to withstand it either.” The second sentence gets tackled on, a reassurance that barely seems to be able to soothe. Kyungsoo graciously accepts, bowing out neatly. 

He nods, dropping his responsibility with the appearance of brambles that ghost down, surpassing the length of Luhan’s hair to mocking swim as a tail, far too blue to be Luhan’s. “Yeah, I was just making sure he didn’t get lost. I’ll see you later, Luhan-hyung.”

“See you, Kyungsoo.” 

The silence picks up as they wait, Luhan waiting for a move to be done first while Yifan keeps his ear cocked for something discernable. Only after the only sounds come from the waiting sun does Yifan move again, in acknowledgement of Luhan’s presence.

“Should we do introductions, Luhan?” Yifan offers, giving away an initiative.

“Oh, yeah, right.” Luhan realises, too long spent where others make his introductions for him. It’s good to speak for himself and others, as Luhan offers a hand, “I’m Lu Han, and that was my roommate Kyungsoo.”

Yifan takes it, smooth palms and long fingers closing over Luhan’s own, a shake of dealings. “I’m Wu Yifan, nice to meet you, Luhan.”

There’s too much silence settling around Yifan, in a way that hadn’t even blanketed Luhan when he was trying to pull all sound inwards, keep it to himself no matter how much there was an urge to rip it off, toss it away. Given such an opportunity that he could scream, it’s a wonder why Yifan does not.

If Yifan insists on keeping it in, then Luhan would have no protest if Yifan does not against his speech. “So, I’m really sorry for disturbing you, but I need help controlling my voice.”

“Why couldn’t you learn before?” A simple, accusatory question even if Luhan knows it should not accuse. Few sirens would be allowed on land without a properly trained and leashed voice, and few sirens would be given the chance to think of going on land without someone to help leash their voice in the first place. The blame on Luhan, is also a blame on wealth, being that his father’s control is impeccable, yet his teaching leaves much to be desired.

“My dad was teaching me, but he has a lot of work and stuff so he didn’t have much time.” Luhan explains, throwing off blame like a bad coat. “I’ve been on land a couple of times before, going with him to work meetings and stuff, but I didn’t need to talk then.”

“So you have a little bit of training?” Yifan picks out, clearly finding the little work Luhan had once been able to do. 

“Yeah. It used to be much worse,” Luhan takes a breath, thinks, and releases, slouching into the mold of repetition and childhood habits. “Like this bad.”

A few birds screech and Yifan blinks, pupils blown wide and retracted with no water to soften the encounter, which in water should be playful and sweet turned harsh and colliding through air.

“Wow, you wouldn’t have been able to speak to anyone with that.” Yifan regains himself, through there was not much of a sign of loss in the first place.

“Yeah.” Luhan wrestles back control, softening vowels and easing his voice. 

“How powerful is your voice?” A question with a gauge that Luhan has no idea to use.

“I’ve been told I have a lot of raw power, so pretty powerful?” 

“Show me.” 

Yifan had warned of siren song before, so was his wish for Luhan to sing? A horrible risk, not one that should be undertaken, in his opinion, especially with how large of a range it spans.

“Wait, you want me to sing? Here?” Luhan fears that Yifan does not truly understand the full impact of this horrifying idea, but also has no way of expressing how bad it could be.

“No one is ever around at this time, why do you think I stick around this place?” Yifan refers to the wind and the disappearing sun, shadowing his eyes in intimidation, demanding Luhan to obey what may not actually be an order. “Right, you’re not going to be at your peak on land.”

“You want me to shift back. And sing. While we are both on campus.” Luhan lists slowly, hopefully enough for the horror in those words to truly express themselves to Yifan.

“There’s a pool right there, if it helps.” 

Tantalising calm waters beckon, rippling in agreement centimetres from Luhan’s feet, ready to reach out and pull him back in. 

“You’re underestimating how powerful my voice can be, we’ll be breaking like 5 laws if I start singing.” Luhan lays the message out into its pieces, hopefully so that now the danger is recognisable, even as he follows Yifan forwards, around the measly gate meant to keep out intruders. 

“I’m not. Trust me.”

An asking of trust? What an odd gesture by a siren, being that there is no such thing as trust between sirens, because there can be no such thing as a siren with others if there is no trust.

“Alright?” Luhan concedes, finally giving into the request as they reach the edge. “So I get into the pool?” 

The reply is solid land no longer under his feet as Luhan plunges into the water, crisp and clear to soothe pains against Luhan’s throat. Burning hues had never been as dark as they are through a glaze of water, yet Luhan does not have time to focus on that, worry reigning as he pushes back against the traitorous skin trying to burst open, holding himself back to tear off the simple garments he must not ruin.

Yifan avoids the wave of water, magnetic force pulling the splash away from his body to crash at his feet. 

“Why did you push me in?!” Luhan protests, catching floating petals on the webs of his fingers as he drops his shoes and pants on the edge, having fought desperately to keep them intact. “Warn me so I can take my clothes off!”

“This way is faster.” Yifan smiles, strolling into splash distance despite his disadvantage. “Your tail is beautiful.”

Luhan’s tail is not a masterpiece of a tail, variegated with a creamy tone and hybridised greens that float in the calmness like varieties of seaweed that mix quite like the difference in currents. But it is a nice and strong tail, capable of carrying Luhan across seas within hours, even if the coloured patches float around to different spots every time he checks, and he quite likes it. 

There have been few compliments on his tail before, as prominent as it tends to be, giving Luhan the surprise of a well-delivered compliment. “Oh. Thanks.” 

Yifan nods, releasing the basketball he spent so long cradling, this time positioning it delicately in order to prevent an escape to the wrong place, on the ground. “Sing please.”

With a distance, Luhan obeys.

It’s been some time since the last that Luhan was able to sing, being that he had already spent far too much time working on suppressing rather than amplifying, yet the music comes naturally, swelling in his throat, growing, slowly twisting, before it bursts forwards from his lips in the form of a wordless tune, a home-comfort that warps and asks to swell, expand, fill up the air as much as it could possibly fill up an ocean. Luhan gives it permission, and watches it grow, faster and larger than the little melodies that exist in the containment of the sea.

Yifan stumbles to his feet, eyes sharp with the stars above stolen and hidden within, staggering motions far from the grace that he usually has, what he usually could be. The sun had finally finished stealing away, and Luhan followed its example, moving back from the force of Yifan approaching, soothing his voice into a croon, a target. 

The overhead beam snaps and glares as a body flies into the water, sending displaced droplets flying, throwing Yifan’s reluctant form into the water as well. He surfaces with an expression of peace, pushing petals out his eyes, the spotlight radiating through to expose a horridly red crimson bloom, swirling unmixed galaxies covered by the intimacy of water. 

“Yeah, I suppose I deserved that.” Yifan sighs, and when Luhan laughs, he can hear the tinkling of the lights as they giggle with him.

Sirens should be immune to siren song, an attraction of one’s most wanted desires that pulls, distorts and draws within a form most pleasing to one’s ears. What Yifan had not expected was that Luhan’s pull, the pure undistilled power in his voice, had proved strong enough to catch even traditionally protected sirens and merfolk alike, at least if they are unguarded or willing for it to take them.

“I did underestimate your voice a little, sorry.” Yifan’s voice changes as it gets flooded by water, breaking the surface as he follows Luhan under, at more comfort with the fluid suspension instead of halted nothingness. “But we’re still so far from everything else that the only one affected should be me.”

Should is a very not assuring word, and Luhan tilts his body horizontally, resting at level with his tail, wondering if he could drown, even if but a little.

“You have a lot of control over your voice.” It’s a statement in the way that impressionable students looking at an abstract piece of art speak in statements, and so Luhan’s response affords it as much of a statement as he was given. 

“It’s mostly just me guiding the energy as it swims loose.”

Yifan disagrees with a shake of the head that does not churn up hair everywhere. “But it’s a type of control. It’s better to guide instead of forcing close anything.”

Luhan does not verbally disagree or agree, yet Yifan still senses his dissent.

“When I pushed you into the pool, you resisted shifting for long enough to take off your pants and shoes. How did you do that?” Yifan circles him, a shark cornering prey.

Surprise had driven most of that shift, because with the first breath of water inhaled, Luhan was once engulfed in the familiar wrappings of liquid, and the shift had started with the realisation that the current form was not suited to this environment. It was only the sudden realisation that his lower half was still clothed, and that he could not ruin these clothes due to the need of getting back to his dorm that made Luhan pause, tamper down the shift occurring to pull off his clothes before he continued, letting two limbs form into one, the distinct colouring of his tail float up from the simple colour of skin.

“I needed to take my clothes off so I pushed down the end of the shift, and did.” Few words are able to express it properly, so Luhan goes for the idea of as few words used as possible.

Yifan circles slower, lazier confusion overlapping his motions, gentle pushes of his tail sending him in more relaxed loops. “Do you bathe with legs?” 

“Yes?” 

“How do you keep from shifting then?”

“I don’t feel the need to.” It had taken quite a lot of practice before Luhan could keep control and not shift back at the first touch of water against his skin. Instead, it becomes more of a twitch under his skin than an urge. 

“That’s an extension of your magic, Luhan. If you manage to equate your voice with the process of shifting, then you’ll be able to control it.” A purr slips into his voice at that, clear induction of belief as this issue and solution gets reduced into a simple sentence. “Wanna try something?”

If he is to be a good pupil, there is nothing to disagree about in trying. “Sure.”

Yifan turns away, only a few strokes before he awaits on the other side of the pool, looking back at Luhan for an agreement or answer. “Speak,” he calls, “say something to me.”

“I like your tail.” The words are pushed out of Luhan’s mouth, hurled across the distance, borne upon the power of his words.

“Swim up,” Yifan directs now, received message shown by the smile curling up his lips.

Breaking the surface is harder than one who has breathed nothing but air for the past few days should think it to be. The sensation is staggering, water-logged head wishing to go down while weighted hair flutters, dancing around with the ripples of the water around him. There is nothing good waiting above the surface, while a nap awaits underneath.

“Repeat what you just said.” Yifan’s voice skips back to Luhan, flat and smooth bounces across the messy surface.

“I like your tail.” Luhan directs, forgetting his understanding about the way words cut through air, and watches as they slice through so much on their way to Yifan, jet engine attached to a paper plane. 

Yifan ducks the words this time, ending up back in the tranquility of water as he makes his way back over to Luhan, every beat of his tail propelling him forwards a beat vibrating against Luhan’s skin. “Water has more resistance than air. You don’t need to put as much magic behind your words while speaking on the surface, Luhan.” 

“Huh.” Luhan repeats, angling the sounds for the Yifan directly ahead of him, and finds them much more lacking in magic, meaning it would be an unconscious tick. “Less stock into my words, and the distance factors into how much I could use.” 

Yifan’s agreement is much nicer up close, where the dip of his neck and the curve of his eyes align as they stare straight at Luhan, willing him to understand. “That should help for now. But you’re going to have to work at it for a good amount of time before you can fully control it.”

“Thank you.” Once again, these words are not expressed in the way that they should, heavy lumps weighed down to the bottom of the pool instead of floated over, despicably lacking. 

Yifan accepts them anyways, picking them off the unstirred bottom with the shoes and clothes lost to his shift, soaked sneakers and loose shorts wrapping up the two words. “No problem. I’ll leave you my number so you can reach me if anything urgent comes up.”

There’s a finality to his words, the shuffling of papers and humans as the teacher declares class over, and for a second, Luhan despairs, watches Yifan slip out of the pool and out of his life entirely, leaving Luhan with a volatile voice only marginally better and a desperation that should not exist.

“Wait.” He halts, punching a pause button so that Yifan turns to look at him, partly beached while Luhan floats, entangled in himself and the water. “Can we do this again?”

“What’s this?” Yifan asks for a clear definition, humour in his voice clearly indicating that he is in fact sure, but is not sure if Luhan is.

“Helping me control my voice. You’re a good teacher.” A good teacher in the way that internal structures are held up by a skeleton, shell of an object and its only purpose is to make sure that such a structure does not fall. 

“I’m not nice enough to do this for free.” Yifan plays with the idea, having already been nice enough to do a session for free.

“I have money to pay, name whatever price you want.” Luhan toys back, tossing a wad of options at Yifan’s feet, infinitely more valuable than the currency of the country.

Yifan looks forwards, looking past Luhan at a different vision that occupies more of his attention. “I’ll charge you the same amount as one of my tutoring sessions, a cup of coffee per hour.”

“A single cup of coffee? That’s not that much, are you sure you don’t want more?” Considering the tuition fee and the prices of things Luhan had bought earlier, the price of a cup of coffee would be a simple drop in the sea, and for such priceless lessons?

Yifan blinks, attention drawn back onto their plane of reality with the agreement, setting his shoes on the ground in preparation of feet. “I don’t need money, just caffeine. When do you want to meet again?”

“When are you free?” That’s the proper thing to question, give Yifan all the options for this endeavor. “My classes are in the morning, besides a two hour one from 1 to 3.”

“Next Monday at 3:30 then? We’ll both be free.” With a blink, the red mass in the water disappears for Yifan to slip on the loose shorts, billowing under the wind, but clings as a second skin to the thinner underwear against his body, the exact shades his tail had been.

“That sounds good.” Luhan agrees, no reason to think otherwise.

“Can I have your phone number?” Nudging the basketball aside, Yifan reveals previous thinking as he drags over his piece of advanced metal, ready to offer his phone to unfamiliar slippery fingers.

Luhan combats the action by fishing out his own phone from the water-logged mess of shorts he had deposited earlier, offering it instead to Yifan. “Here, I don’t really use my phone.”

The phone tumbles a few times in Yifan’s hand, flinging water outwards as he calculates, before slipping it in to properly input information. “But you invested in a waterproof one. Smart.”

The saleswoman, who was there to ensure that Luhan spent more money than strictly necessary, and Kyungsoo who was there to ensure the opposite, had combined forces on this one phone, thinking it wise that Luhan get a phone that would survive as well in water as Luhan himself. Luhan thanks them both now, being that he unwittingly took it for a swim and it seems quite alive. 

Yifan nods to himself once more, before he closes it to offer back to Luhan, a gesture of returning as separated fingers meet webbed ones. “Do you need a towel or a shower?”

“No? It’s just water?” Luhan resists the shift for as long as he possibly could, but at this, admits that he could delay no further, and slowly unwinds the singularity of his tail, gently pulling and separating into two legs, feeling scales recede for skin. 

“Well, for the future, that building over there is a changing room, and there are usually clean towels inside.” Yifan explains, pointing out a little shed by the pool’s opposite end, a shelter for those who would seek it. A group that does not include Luhan, as he struggles against the attraction of his underwear to his shorts in order to put them on, one at a time.

“Oh, alright.” 

Silence descends as Luhan eventually covers himself again in accordance with land customs, and Yifan pleasantly follows the track of a moth traveling. With nothing left to say, there should be nothing keeping Yifan from leaving, the tentative ties of this little meeting not strong enough for that. And so Yifan takes the initiative as the moth smacks straight into a light bulb while Luhan drags his lower half out from the water, not valuing the idea of trying to put on socks. 

“I’ll see you next Monday then?” Yifan asks for reassurance of their plans. “I’ll text you more details later.”

“See you next Monday, Yifan. It was nice to meet you.” Luhan says honestly, still struggling with the tiny pieces of cloth meant for his feet. There is a truly real danger of him falling into the pool again and ending up doing several front-flips, but then he can just practice swimming with legs.

Gravel crunches as Yifan departs, no more words to be exchanged between them at this time, even with all that there still is to be said. Luhan wins his battle against the horrid items, but loses it against gravity, still not entirely sure why feet that are already enclosed in shoes need another layer of something soft. Feet are far too delicate, but then again, it’s hardly likely fins would hardly fare better against the horrid surfaces that land beings move on. 

After hauling himself out from the pool a second time, Luhan gives a moment of consideration for the mess made of this area. Apparently the flower crown was much sturdier and more entangled in Luhan’s hair than expected, because there remains no evidence of it having fallen out besides the blanket of petals lost to the waters. 

The flowers remain afloat in his hair even as Luhan wrings his hair out slightly, due to the way that land beings tend to frown upon water being tracked everywhere, though he figures that the air would steal the moisture from his clothes soon enough. So he plucks his phone off the ground, shoves his feet properly into the shoes, and makes his way back to the dorm.

Luhan never claims to know direction, but he remembers well enough the path Kyungsoo brought him along, and as long as he gets back to that little brook, he’ll be able to find his way to his dorm. Barring that line of thought, there’s a different one to consider.

Yifan is weird. At least for a siren, being that he seems to perfectly fit all human customs well enough. 

There’s a bluntness and ability to jump straight to issues, slicing neatly through pleasantries or disguises important requests with softened words, as Yifan takes no roundabouts or detours, no matter how awkward of a subject it may be. Sirens tend to wrap questions and concerns within heavily glazed and enthusiastic inquiries, all the better to be able to hear themselves talk longer. Luhan might appreciate it at some point, but currently he puzzles over it, ready for deception when the subject flies straight to him.

Yifan asked for trust, though he had already gained it the moment Luhan knew his identity, contrary and unlike how he had given Luhan his trust, as asking for voices tends to be. Even more beyond that, the vocalisation of trust is so wholly unfamiliar and most likely human, that Luhan does not know quite how to deal with. He may be a bit more familiar with Chanyeol’s regard in so, as the elemental does not need to ask for trust before giving it either.

The most confusing of all may just be the silence. Sirens are not meant to naturally be quiet, so when a hush descends, it does so entirely, stifling dead air making a calm and marking them with irregularity that acts unpleasantly, quietude clinging onto them in hair-raising unnaturalness. 

Yet Yifan seems quite comfortable with silence, not actively avoiding it, yet keeping fluidity in his moves that reduces the sound he makes even as Luhan splashes and flaps and sings, trying to make noise. Yet he had shortened his words and motions at Yifan’s direction, easily drifting down towards his quiet.

Quite an unsiren-like siren, Yifan, but he’s Luhan’s only hope for the foreseeable future. He looks forward to getting to know this interesting person.


	5. Chapter 5

Monday arrives as the second occurrence of Luhan slipping off campus to the unknown, but this time without Kyungsoo guiding him places. Instead, Luhan follows the direction of his maps app, and hopes that it would be accurate, while keeping an eye out in case he would ever need to return back to campus instead of pleading loss.

The fill-in professor for Professor Chung had finally arrived after 3 weeks of radio silence from the administration and other students about the possibility of him returning. Moreover, the man seems to have been told about Luhan’s role in the entire frenzy, as he avoids both calling on Luhan, and eye-contact with him. 

The app leads him to a small cafe, built in green tones stolen off his tail, but instead of a creamy undertone, there’s a grounded brown quite like healthy soil. But what alarms Luhan is the amount of people, squeezed elbow to elbow, a truly bustling place.

There is no way he could ever open his mouth in such a place, why would Yifan possibly want to meet in such a location?

“Ah, Luhan.” The voice slips into place next to Luhan, falling in step as Yifan’s presence both drives away others, and kindly steers Luhan in. “Nice to see you’ve made it.”

_What are we doing here?_ Luhan types out on his phone, much more accustomed to using the device as his voice after Jongin was kind enough to propose the idea one lunchtime. 

“Just buying some coffee. It’ll be my fee, remember?” Yifan hums, voice a steady glide through the mess of noise and crowd. 

Luhan nods, hanging onto the smoothness of his voice, keeping afloat in this wave of trouble. Yifan easily nudges them into line, weaving around the living bodies on their way to join in wait.

“Do you want something?” 

The thermos of chamomile tea feels even more solid and apparent in his hand with this question, but there’s something to be sought in learning about new things, exactly what tasting something new would be. 

_What do you recommend?_ Luhan taps out.

“Do you like sweet or bitter?” Yifan asks, disregarding the drink already being held.

_I don’t like things too sweet._

Before Luhan could get an affirmation or a hint of the thoughts passing by Yifan’s head, they get moved to the front of the line, leaving Luhan with no choice but to trust that Yifan is equipped with a decent amount of knowledge regarding coffee drinks. Ha, trust Yifan.

“One large iced coffee and one medium latte to go.” 

Ice floats around in the iced coffee, bobbing, clinking, tapping in a silent array as Yifan retrieves the two drinks bought. The larger cup Yifan holds for himself as they are allowed to push out of the enclosed space, bursting out into the outside air and the sidewalk, and once again they become faceless in the crowd.

What Luhan assumes to be the latte is passed over to him, a second layered sleeve keeping unfelt heat away from Luhan’s fingers, a direct contrast in temperature against Yifan’s own drink.

“It’s mixed partly with milk to reduce the bitterness.” Yifan finally explains, mouthful of his own tones of this drink, the sweetly pulverised smell lingering even as they move away from the source. “Mine is just pure black, so it’s a lot more bitter.”

The latte hits the requirement of not being too sweet, but leaves a taste of sugar on Luhan’s tongue, curiously used to cover up the bitter and richness underneath. Muted, the whole thing tastes, just the slightest bit muted. 

_Can I try yours?_ Luhan types out at a stoplight, bright red cautioning them from moving forwards for long enough so that he can cradle his drinks in an arm to pull out the device of his communication.

“Sure.” Yifan responds after the initial nudge for attention, and with a second blink, he’s taken Luhan’s load out of his embrace, straw directed to paces before Luhan’s lips. 

The ice coffee is unfiltered, raw taste and raw emotion overwhelming in comparison to the peek given from the latte. Nothing prepares him fully for the flavour, smoke and fire compressed into bean and then liquid form, and the realisation is almost too much. Luhan returns to his covered version, and sips on the latte while the taste settles down somewhere fundamental in his mind anyways.

Yifan does not react besides a slight quirk of his eyes suggesting he be too polite to laugh, and they move forwards at the flip in light to green.

After the initial impression and the realisation of the unfortunate middle ground not properly achieved, there’s another initial impression of the neighborhood they’ve wandered into, with its tall but quietly clean buildings, individuality in tiny potted window sills that live in arrays. There’s then the realisation that the noise softens, less beings moving around the further they slip in, and that Luhan’s not quite sure where they’re headed, being that this seems the opposite direction of school.

_Where are we going?_

“My apartment.” Yifan explains, putting into context the residential apartments they pass. “I would usually tutor in a cafe or library, but since you can’t be doing this in public, I thought it would be better to be somewhere private where we won’t get interrupted.”

_You don’t live on campus?_ From the way Yifan loitered, Luhan had thought that he lived mere minutes rather than kilometres away from their first meeting site. 

“I did in my first year, in one of the water dorms. But I didn’t want to get too reliant on it, so this year I didn’t register for a dorm and moved off campus.” 

The water dorms were created under a small pond, and directly expanded on by some nymphs to become connected to natural sources of water and have its own river in attachment, possible only due to the close proximity the campus keeps to the sea. A great allure, for sure, as one of the few colleges with such a luxury, but a trap in that it would keep them in a safe bubble, away from the land they have to get accumulated to. 

It was a tough decision for Luhan, but now giving up Kyungsoo would be too great of a sacrifice, as well as the fact that there were plenty of actual pools Luhan could sleep in if homesick or longing for a more familiar element around him.

Yifan shrugs, ending that line of inquiry when Luhan nods an assent, having gone through the same weighing of priorities. “Anyways, we’re here.”

He introduces Luhan to a robin-grey building, squeezed into place between two other identical ones, the only indication of difference being the red bush in front, hinting at life being able to thrive on these grounds.

The door sticks even after unlocked and pushed, and mud litters the originally dark blue tiles, even more so the mat that invites feet to be wiped on. Even so, the black stairs that climb up are sturdy and unbroken, any trace of dirt hidden from view. By the time he’s pausing behind Yifan to wait for entrance, Luhan’s decided that he likes this sleepy little place, even before he steps inside.

“This is my humble abode. Welcome.” Yifan sweeps open a path in, and Luhan steps gingerly, aware of the dirt on his soles in comparison to the clean white of the floor.

“It looks great.” Luhan exercises his ability to speak, placing his drinks onto the ground to free his hands up to remove his shoes. 

“Oh, you’re doing better.” There’s simple surprise in his voice, the type that makes it clear that it comes about because something happens early, rather than unexpectedly. Even the door claps as it closes, and Luhan allows himself a smile at the lesser magic in his voice.

“I practiced after we left.” Luhan goes into detail, following Yifan forwards as he makes his way to the couch, gently blue and sufficiently pillowed. Yifan easily falls forwards into his pile of softness, while Luhan lowers himself slowly. “I’m better at imagining I'm talking to someone directly in front of me, and trying to put minimum magic into my voice.”

“That’s good.” 

The silence that arrives, neatly categorised like everything else in Yifan’s neat little place, is a reminder. It settles around Luhan’s neck and whispers to him that for all that he “trusts” (ha) Yifan, he doesn’t know him any more than any other being fished out of the sea. 

Meanwhile, Yifan watches him, a bit curiously actually, in contemplation or in wonder of what would be done next. It’s a look for settling, and bats away the reminder stroking his throat. 

“So what do we do?” Luhan is driven to the question, and Yifan offers the only possible answer.

“Well, you have to train your voice, so just talk.”

“Talk about what?” 

Yifan’s lips upturn, utterly casual in their mocking. “What is there to talk about? 

“I don’t know, I barely even know who you are.” Luhan finally says the words settled down on his tongue, and Yifan hmms, a rather melodic note that understands and acknowledges at once.

“Then we can get to know each other.” 

“But I can’t just talk without direction, that doesn’t do anything.” 

Yifan holds a hand out, asking for an object without direction. The expectation that Luhan knows what it is shines in his eyes, but Luhan barely knows anything about him. Maybe his coffee? 

Yifan shifts his coffee to his other hand, catching Luhan’s floating one instead, dragging Luhan back onto the couch until his body slots between several pillows, comfortably trapped. “Relax.”

Yifan’s thumb smooths over Luhan’s knuckles, rising and falling gently over each little bump as it circles around, slow strokes dedicated to anchor Luhan down, and Luhan takes a breath. What an interesting unusual response.

“Think about calming your voice, and project less. You’re putting more power in now.” Yifan soothes, a hint of magic in his own voice starting to steep in, used to file down Luhan’s own rising jaggedness. And he’s not wrong, Luhan realises, pressing down the rising overpowered sea salt clinging to his throat and tongue, substantially grown from the lessened amount he was able to use after a few days of talking with Kyungsoo. 

Luhan inhales some of his tea, mollifying his pulse and the magic needed to leave. Lessen the pressure, speak to Yifan up close, a stream instead of flood. “Um, what are you studying?”

“”I’m majoring in education.” Yifan replies from his infinite well of patience and calm.

Luhan frowns, teasingly serious. “No wonder you’re doing so well.”

Yifan blinks, pleased, and Luhan finally settles down.

An hour trickles down the drain in diluted words, occasionally coaxed but usually free-flowing of their own, and then so does another, flowing a bit faster than previous. 

Yifan interrupts first, pausing when he notices the clock, pausing before Luhan could continue on a reiteration of the class he had just left. 

“It’s been nice talking, but I have class in a few minutes.” Yifan motions to their empty cups, including a mug that actually belongs in Yifan’s possession, containing more water for Luhan, given the amount he loses in speech.

“Ah. It’s been over two hours, hasn’t it? Should I buy you another coffee?” Luhan retrieves his hand from Yifan’s to search for bills, having used the weight and contact to anchor himself down this entire time, a reminder every time his voice gets stepped in magic that he has to clear it away, pressing down.

“You could just give me enough for a coffee, and I’ll buy one on my own time. Most people pay me a certain amount instead of actually paying for a coffee.” Yifan reaches up, unfolding his heavy limbs to stretch them out before recompacting them.

“Do you want me to?” Luhan notes, hearing the absence of the rigidity that would indicate an instruction rather than suggestion.

Yifan grins, meaning clear even without his voice, and takes the bills Luhan fished out. “Come on, I’ll walk you back to campus.” 

~~~

Time flows brilliantly fluidly, an endless river running down into the sea and Luhan is just a simple siren unable to resist the push. He could barely resist his own voice, a mere spectator floating down with the current. 

Yifan remains an enigma, remaining the calmest surface with barely any ripples to float across, but thankfully unyielding regular in so, an untouched pond. 

Their sessions grow in number until Luhan’s legs memorise the path there, a quick meet-up at the coffee shop with the ladies who at least have a smile to spare for him when he buys the day’s payment, as well as the americano he settles on as the right balance, before he weaves through the streets to Yifan’s home. 

Yifan awaits in front of the building, being that the first front door locks separately, an extra layer of security. 

After delivering his payment, to which Yifan would always have a challenged twitch of his lips, crooking upwards as he continues to dare Luhan with those words, they continue upwards in minimal silence, understanding that it would be ended as soon as they enter the little sanctuary. 

Originally they only chatted about things, Yifan having minimum input about Luhan’s voice while Luhan practices, pushing and pulling and resisting and letting loose over and over until he no longer tastes sea salt when he traps words behind his teeth, keeping them from slipping out as the sea salt slips away, pouring down his throat. That would settle as one hurdle passed, causing less discomfort even as Luhan tempers down his need to have words rise up through his tongue at the first thought of anything.

As progress tends to do, it stagnates there, wasting away three days in which Luhan speaks through a nap, a recipe of vegetables, and some complicated math Yifan tumbles through hoops to chase an answer for.

Instead, they change to pushing limits, Luhan singing under water, into muffled materials, gags and particularly flavourful cakes until he feels drained quite unlike he could ever possibly be drained. Times like those are the closest things to success that Luhan could experience, in which sparks of normalcy jump out among a mouthful of dripping power, running empty until the next time he drinks, and feels himself heal as liquid coaxes more from his overworked throat.

The sessions finish on a tight schedule, Yifan declaring at 5:30 that he cannot miss class and therefore creating the need for them to get up, usually out of heaps of pillows in which they had become entombed, for them to make the trudge back to campus. This route stays the most inconsistent, a new path forged each day through light charges of trespassing, and the steady insistence Yifan has that it would be the right way.

It could hardly surprise anyone that Luhan gets close to Yifan, much less himself about the worries and complaints Yifan’s have or had, and perhaps even a few for the future. 

However, one noon, with rain pouring down like a direct exchange to touch upon Luhan, Yifan traipses into the cafeteria, having just been defeated in a competition against the sky judging by the dampness in his hair, and ruins the carefully crafted scheduled days Luhan had lived.

Chanyeol echos his thoughts with words, and before another thing would be done, Yifan approaches, the barest on edge as he awaits reactions.

“Take a seat, Yifan-hyung.” Chanyeol offers, but Yifan glances at Luhan as he takes the empty one between his two connections to this little group.

It’s not until Yifan sits that Luhan thinks, ah, they’re friends, and introductions kick-start to give Jongin context.

It would be uncertain, this new status of his, if not for the fact that sometimes Luhan would end up arriving at Yifan's apartment before the owner himself, leaving him waiting outside, trying desperately to feel he belongs on the street he looks so out of place on.

Yifan hands him a key after the fourth mishap leaving him waiting on the empty stairs, passing time and avoiding eye contact with the tenants who enter, offering him entry as well. “So you won’t need to wait so awkwardly outside.”

“Why?” Luhan accepts, because to refuse such a generous gift would be too horribly rude.

“I trust you.” He says, exasperatedly amused.


	6. Chapter 6

The beginning of the end starts with yet another one of Yifan’s ideas, one proposed to Luhan already half-buried in cushions on the couch, drinks on the coffee table, keys on the key-holder.

Yifan feels no need to greet the “You’re here late,” as he slips his shoes off and hangs his keys up in their place, Luhan staring from half-lidded and barely listening eyes.

“I think you just really need to relax.” Yifan slips straight into critique, noticing the bed Luhan’s made for himself.

“I am relaxing? Right now?” There are few ways that Luhan could possibly be more relaxed than interred in pillows, so unless Yifan wished for him to nap within a pool instead, there was no way to relax more.

“No, with your voice. You’re less likely to put so much magic into your throat when you’re relaxed, and if you fully relax, you could probably get rid of all of it.” Yifan explains, sitting close enough to reach forwards and brush Luhan’s skin, but does not.

“What are you proposing?” Luhan digs himself out of the hole he had made himself to attempt to recover some semblance of the propriety he had discarded at the door.

“I use my voice on you.”

Oh. 

_Oh._

The worst and simultaneously best kept siren secret managed to be the siren voice, or specifically the fact that there is not a single being truly resistant to it, unless mutant. There are just those more and less resistant to the most dangerous weapon, and siren trust falls on the knowledge a siren would not sing another. Or perhaps a trust that a siren would not sing another for the wrong reasons.

Would Luhan be willing to strip off his natural defences to listen, lain bare under another’s control in a way that he has rarely been, especially with his given permission?

“Alright.” He takes one final sip of tea before sitting back to await Yifan’s decision on the matter. “I trust you.”

Yifan gives him the grin that tsunamis and cyclones and hurricanes spin with, before he takes a breath and plunges Luhan under.

Intoxicating. The only word left as Yifan’s voice curls up in the air like the steam above fresh snow, and then floats down to settle around his shoulders and slide around him, twisting slightly as if trying to find the best way to envelop him in a way that uses a word combining both enfold and engulf. It shouldn’t feel like this, because Luhan has heard more siren songs than the stones in the water have tasted death in his lifetime, and besides, he is a siren. 

That doesn’t stop Luhan from forcing his body to recline and hide the way his spine shivers in anticipation of breakage, like the many tiny parts holding him up for so long were about to be snatched out one by one. Certainly means he shouldn’t actually relax when there’s the sudden breakage of the entrancing solidness of sound and the low scruff of a voice against the edge of the last syllable with a scoffing that always sounded closer to a smile, and the words catch themselves and blend into the divergence as effortlessly as if they had never stopped in the first place. So obviously he should have never completely stripped himself of any sort of a feeling of defense, as if he was actually rendered raw, and alone, and human, to be lured into an idealised trap yet go fully willingly knowing about it. 

“There’s not really a way to do it, is there? It’s just a matter of letting it flow and stopping it whenever you want, actually far more effortless than going to sleep.”

The low hum of Yifan’s voice rocks him to the edge of sleep yet keeps him so awake that Luhan would never be able to actually fall through. There’s cold spreading through his body, touching slowly one bit of his body at a time, a suspicion rather than actual pressure. It travels through his muscles yet does not show because Luhan refuses to tremour here, strategically avoiding the weakening lump of bones that had been his spine. 

“There’s not really anything to say either, is there? But there’s not a reason to speak either, because you hear what you want, right?” Yifan continues, voice almost gruff, and if Luhan did not grow up with splintering lives and splintering ships and the preemptively fruitless efforts to pretend that an effort could change anything, he would not have been able to hear the growl under the honey. A deeper edge licking its lips, ready to stroll out of the dark to a perfectly willing victim and then devour it slowly, pulling apart with all the time to spare as it tears minds into shreds with the surety of gravity knowing it will always just pull back down.

And Yifan is right, because not a single one of his words would ever be wrong, despite the way it drags claws over Luhan’s clothes, trying to tear through and into the bones wrapped neatly underneath. 

“It is called siren song for a reason. It’s usually a wordless tune, isn’t it? Wordless tunes work best actually, because then the victim hears much clearly what they want to hear.” Yifan admits, curiosity that twists his voice into a moment stolen straight from a passionate professor considering a new view on a very old issue. 

Yes, it is usually just silent song, and Luhan acknowledges it. His gift just happens to believe that whether Luhan wishes to make it easier for it to work or not, it will, endlessly infuriating yet still completely reliable in such a matter. 

“Would you like to hear me sing? Don’t answer right now, because you’re still thinking about it, and I have more things to say.” 

The most important sense Luhan has is not sight, nor is it anywhere close to the top, but he lets his eyes pull open in an act of necessity that must happen. And sure enough, Yifan is glancing at him with something almost curious, a bit more rewarding than mere concern or wonder at the way Luhan fits so well with the pillows and cushions of this worn couch. Yet Luhan also doesn’t feel a need to leave that gaze, which promises nothing more harmful than a mere need to know, and stares back, trying to figure out if it is what he thinks it could be, or maybe because this moment was made for him to be able to stare back at Yifan.

“Siren song isn’t meant to be harmful, just to help. But since what it wants to help is not the humans, we just picked up a bit of a short stick. And you can disagree fully with me, but these voices are here for a reason and it isn’t to be able to hurt, because otherwise we wouldn’t be able to do this.”

Stars bloom across a slow and untapped night sky. No movement is needed, yet Luhan feels the need to completely show his complete agreement somehow, and if not with voice, then with motion. Luhan would agree with anything coming out of that mouth if Yifan spoke for even seconds more.

There are flowers with those words, and they smell like how they look. When they don’t, they instead smell of a slight darkness that hangs in the air with coffee and onto Yifan’s voice, just like the tinge of chocolate on his tongue. The grass pleas purple, or perhaps indigo, or maybe aqua green, shifting to glitter around his body with a synthetic sparkle of plastic reshaped into metal. Luhan keeps staring at them, because there is no way that he would be able to survive the pure vastness of the sky looking down at him lying there, a glance that no longer has a right to be called glance after all its patience waiting for him to respond. But Luhan doesn’t know how to respond, and does not.

“And obviously it became a mess, because it was a big misunderstanding and a lack of communication does nothing but add trouble, except in comedies.”

The leaf that floats him up from the grounded dream straight into the end of whatever touch of monologue Yifan finishes up is so controlled, yet still lacks a need or place to go without boundaries to have to push. Luhan was not even aware that he had slipped over the edge of sleep for a moment and that his body brought him back because he was simply not ready for it to be over. Sleep does not feel like sleep, but do dreams ever?

When he pulls back, he misses the blanket over him like a wish, yet does not regret that he is faced with a reality.

“I think I’m just about done talking. I can go on for longer but it feels weird just talking at you while you lie there. How did the nap feel?” Yifan asks, the magic within his voice already starting to drip out, as if Luhan needed to be weaned off such drugs. Yet like how Yifan could detect the subtleties between wakefulness and actually not wakefulness, Luhan does not doubt that Yifan could detect he was already addicted.

“Mn-huh.” Luhan agrees, head clearer with the sudden relief of the nap sprung on him. The clarity would fade within seconds, but why bother clearing up the area immediately around him if he could still not see in the fog of Yifan’s voice?

“So would you like to hear me sing? I can do a quick tune right now if you want.”

The moment the question mark of the sentence appeared in his voice before the full words, a mere world and nap away on the other side of this chasm, the answer had already been a decisive yes.

“I would love to.” The lack of clarity and twirl in his own voice is almost so startling that Luhan needs to open his eyes immediately, yet the reaction requires only a slow blinking opening, to watch once again the way that Yifan watches him. The mouth containing that voice quirks up, as if finally finding something that pleased him, and gently laughs at Luhan, but declines to comment further.

Finally, proof that Luhan can do it. That he was capable of actually controlling and not being controlled, that his voice could be non-lethal. But that pales rapidly in sight of the way that Yifan inhales strength, and opens his mouth to release intoxication.

Humans were not built to withstand siren song. Sirens had built their bodies up on that very thought, that very fact, and it was only due to the progressiveness in society that they could even begin to start getting past it. 

Other species were, however, and during a completely insane and trackless wandering of some of the most obscure forms of writing on the internet one day in search and anticipation of further troubles and attack, Luhan stumbled over the contribution of a mixed child, who offered the only helpful and fresh advice in those forums. 

They were mostly human, yet had some droplets of siren blood from a long-dead ancestor, so their minds were well protected against the actual fatal clawing that the voice does to a human mind. Instead, whenever they heard siren song, it felt more like being drunk, a full night and year’s worth of alcohol rushing the system and leaving them with the high of something that should not be sought, and then chewed up and spit out to be tossed into the morning barely worse for wear, except with a nagging that any good alcoholic may recognise.

Luhan thinks of them now, as the song strikes his chest and shatters his body into the stars that burst across his vision. There’s nothing there behind the stars, besides the universe and whatever facade hiding the too much that Luhan cannot, should not, will not ever face, but spread so thinly that if he wasn’t too careful, he could punch through and then break in a way that shatters every glass plate in the house on the way down. 

He is warm and held, and snuggled, and reprieved, while in the exact time water gets tossed on his head and then rushes through his body into his lungs and then the rest to weigh him down and drown him, but not maleficently. There was a hunger of the way that empty notebooks and completely filled ones keep pulling, akin to the shedded snake skin that rips easier than a bandaid and works just about as well. Why would he break anything, if he could have this, even for seconds, even more minutes? 

He floats alone in the middle of the sea, abandoned by a fisherman on their way out for their morning catch, but the fish tease by swallowing what stars he cannot wish, threatening to swallow him as well. There is song, but it must be his song so he ignores it, allowing himself to get charmed by the fishes and the way they still fit, adrift in a sea that is more heavens than sea. His family is safe near, but hidden within the way that vision twists on its expulsion from unconsciousness into reality, so Luhan floats further. Sand covers damaged things to make them more fragmented, and so Luhan watches as they repaint him, in the same care of delicateness learned by the way that the stars hold. 

Everything is intoxicating, down to the very last drop of possibility that such a word could ever exist without his approval. And Luhan is content for nothing more than to be utterly drunk, completely high and wasted on it.

Yifan wraps up the last few notes with the similarities that death and naps share when rotating into borderlands of emotion and minds. Luhan wants to stay with the way the final note bubbles up in the air like he. It’s the brilliance of un-preparedness and the difference between clearing away waking up and deleting something.

Luhan wants more.

“Your voice is beautiful.” No mention of the effect is needed, because what is there that Yifan does not know?

Something about the rain that is suddenly pitter-pattering against the walls has stolen the magic in the room, especially with the insistence that Luhan just have not heard it for the hours it was there prior. It reflects the absence of it in his voice, coating his throat heavily like he would have to pull out one of those thousand napkins chain from his mouth.

“And you’re finally properly doing it.” Yifan counters, with a degree of pleasantry and pleased that is more than it should, 

But without an urge to shiver away, Luhan nods pleasantly. The silvers of stars still have to be dealt with, and this house is messy enough without excess. “I think so.”

“I bet you’re really comfortable, but I need you to sit up to do it again.” 

“Do you?” Luhan challenges, brushing against the last of the stars as they escape, voice still evenly stable.

Yifan’s hand brushes the tip of Luhan’s hair and the illusions crash down, falls away, lost to the distinctly new illusion he lives, “Sit up.”

“Fine.” 

Luhan’s mind, mush and unshaped mass that is, hisses even as he obeys, about the way that Yifan’s hand settles against his shoulders like the suction of an octopus’s tentacle and remains. 

There’s not yet a trace of salt-water doused magic in his voice yet, even if it clogs up the room, sea breeze blowing for only Luhan to smell. “Thank you, Yifan-hyung.”

Judging by the first ripples Luhan has ever seen on the serene pond surface, as Yifan wrinkles his nose and narrows his eyes the way lesser trapped prey do, the honorific suddenly attached would not be a choice he could respect.

“You’re older than me,” he pushes back, “never call me that ever again.”

Luhan could only laugh at the successes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was heavily inspired by Starry Night and H20, thank you to our Sulay kings.


	7. Chapter 7

The first test comes at lunchtime, crammed after hours of meticulous studies, and starts the moment Yifan sits, always the last to complete their group.

“Do you know why sirens can’t speak above water, Jongin?” Yifan starts, sending the poor boy, unprepared as a guinea pig or for such blatant testing, into visible confusion.

“But you’re a siren, Yifan-hyung?” Jongin responds, the unasked second question about Yifan himself very apparent.

“Wrong answer, Nini.” Chanyeol nudges, flames disappearing from the point of contact just prior to it, clearly just to rib their youngest.

“That wasn’t an answer.” Jongin tosses back with a verbal underhand, before seriously spinning around the idea. “Um, magic? I know siren song’s supposed to be deadly, not that I think you two would ever do something,” he throws in, glancing over with a level of worry at offense that he is perfectly entitled to.

“You’re right,” Yifan confirms, “siren voices are dangerous magic, and can mentally hurt someone who doesn’t have magic to protect themselves from it.”

Jongin huffs, flicking a dandelion nearby the tree they dine under, sending up a flurry of white possibilities. “Is this another humans get the short end of the magic stick because there’s no magic?”

Yifan nods with too much solemnness, while Luhan reconsiders the disdain in his friend’s voice. Out of their little group, Jongin would be the only non-magical being, though Luhan never recognised true magic until he watched how the air only breathed around Jongin’s dancing, or how light and happiness are so easily attracted to his smile and eyes.

“Leftover problem from when it was socially acceptable to be eaten.” Kyungsoo drawls, taking a particularly vicious tear out of his completely vegetarian tofu dish.

“Okay….? And you’re telling me this now because?” Jongin pointedly looks to his chicken, a quick reminder that he does not do well with consuming food and difficult topics at once. Perhaps they should’ve brought this up after he first finished consuming food. 

“Luhan-hyung’s going to eat you.” Kyungsoo smirks, chilli pepper on his mouth almost as if trying to directly offer an alternative for his words.

_Jongin-_ Luhan’s fingers are already aflutter, completely forgotten about their plan with it having quickly jumped off the rails, as it tends to do, but there’s no time or registration within Jongin’s panicked eyes, clearly horrified with the very thought.

“Um, thanks for the consideration, but like I’d rather not. Like it’s not that I have anything against you, but I don’t like you like that, and I don’t think I ever will, and I think anyways that Se-um someone else already has dibs on eating me, not that it’s bad, but I just don’t wanna and-”

“I knew you and Sehun were fucking!” Chanyeol crows, and dandelion ashes drop into the grass at his excitement, along with a few bites of his own lunch. “Pay up!”

“He only said Sehun has dibs, there was no confirmation.” Yifan responds, clearly holding very tightly to the little money he would possess. If the implications were any different, Luhan would easily agree, but as it stands, he would gladly accept and reciprocate with his own stammered refusal.

“You guys were betting on my relationship?” Jongin turns away onto this new tidbit, looking far firmer and disgraced in this discovery.

“Wrong kind of eat.” Kyungsoo removes the sauce, but his eyes are no less predatory. “More importantly, are you?”

“No, I-um-, it’s complicated?” Jongin tumbles around in statements, barely managing to settle on a less than satisfactory one. 

Luhan, though not being a nice siren, decides that perhaps they should just relieve Jongin for the moment, though any further attacks could be postponed for later, and refers to Yifan for getting them back on track.

“Let’s come back to this,” Yifan interjects at a tap from Luhan. “Magic is a volatile thing, and if not able to be properly controlled, it could be dangerous.”

Chanyeol chooses the moment to provide an example, shower of sparks sent flying as he sneezes, dancing upon the air before they die out as fast as they lived. To combat that, with a roll of his eyes, Kyungsoo sends shoots popping up, twisting and tangling until it threatens to choke Luhan in a bed of green, a new false tail made purely for him.

“So all this was just to say that sirens can’t speak above water because they don’t have proper control of their voices?” Jongin takes all the pieces and assembles the 4-piece puzzle set out for him.

“Yeah. I sent Professor Chung to the hospital.”’ Luhan’s voice is weak, far weaker than it should be, when he had tested it in between bites of breakfast to an exhausted Kyungsoo, but it works. 

“Whoa. Luhan-hyung.” Jongin’s own method of speaking starts to fail him, eyes wide in regard, falling quiet and surprised. “That was you?”

“It happened on my first day, but I think he’s doing much better.” With a slight bit of strength recovered, Luhan finds that his next task turns out to become reassurance. “But I can control it now! Yifan helped, and there’s no way I’ll lose control, unless it’s something dire.”

“He sung without using siren song,” Kyungsoo bolsters, and decides to not mention how Baekhyun had been so entranced afterwards that Luhan was not quite sure if that was true, or if he had just reduced it to such a small dose, it contained as much poison as an apple seed.

“He shouted at me,” Chanyeol inputted, “without losing his control, even if he lost his cool.” The argument was profoundly petty, but Chanyeol refuses to apologise for declaring puppies were cuter than sea otters, so Luhan would not apologise for the vice versa.

“I’m not worried,” Jongin declares with far too much confidence for a man previously worried about bugs dining with them outdoors, despite the times it occurred prior, and that there was no legal right for them to keep bugs away from dining with them under the sun. “It’s just, your voice is really nice, hyung.”

“Thank you?” Sure, objects of mass destruction should be considered nice for more potency, but it’s interesting hearing Jongin declare it so.

“Sorry, that was really dumb considering you’re like an actual siren,” Jongin hastens once more to clarify, an action he does quite a lot, “but your voice is really nice. Like lullaby or could make reading a textbook sound nice, nice.”

Kyungsoo’s plants weave around Luhan’s body, entrapping but still the comforting weight they always posed, Chanyeol’s fire forms a continuous pillar of warmth near, even as it becomes more of a curse with the slowly rising temperatures, and Yifan’s hand, threaded and comforting in his own, remains there. Jongin’s words are better than any siren could ever say, because his smiles contain the most magic.

“Thank you.” Luhan thanks, general yet not, supported as he floats above the waves.

~~~

The second test comes with sunshine and the high of acceptance making Luhan weightless, far too buoyant as he walks off campus with Yifan for once, sent off by Kyungsoo with a flower crown grown with more effort than the little dryad had. Perhaps one day they’ll meet, and when that day arrives, he could properly speak to her.

“You know, humans usually don’t just hold hands.” Yifan remarks, casual and fleeting as the clouds fluffy and round in the sky, slowly turning by.

Luhan sees nothing wrong with it, it’s easy to keep from losing Yifan in the crowd of people just as much as it anchors him down, despite all the implications. Nevermind that his feet know the way to their destination, walked far too many times than he could ever recount, or that unlike the currents, it would not be that easy to separate from Yifan with only the battering of air.

“We’re not quite human, are we?” 

Yifan doesn’t point out that they are both far too human now, human in actions done through air, and that Luhan had been wrong when they first met, because there’s nothing non-siren about the oh, so human way Yifan moves. Perhaps being human isn’t just the absence of words and embrace of silence, because Luhan still shies from quiet and words pour out too much, and he’s a bit too human too. 

Instead, he smiles, because he understands, and Luhan tugs him forwards, two boats in the sea. 

The lady still offers Luhan a smile when he gives one first, but before she could chirp out the familiar words for Luhan to confirm, he acts first.

“Can we have two slices of the cake of the day?” 

She blinks, the change as expected as the Mandela effect, but does her job perfectly. “Caramel sea salt?”

“Yes.” Luhan accepts, perfectly aware of the word irony and its everyday applications.

“Anything to drink?” Her fingers tap along, in time to Yifan’s along Luhan’s skin.

“Two large cups of iced coffee, one with slightly more milk.” 

“Coming right up.” This smile is different, prouder, but perhaps a bit wrongly interpreted, as her eyes jump to Yifan’s calm before returning to Luhan’s regularity.

Stealing two seats across from each other, a display in front of the window, sharpens the focus and actions. The seats drag, screeching teeth biting against the ground as they take weight, the plates a cry of slowed stones stirring up sand. 

Yifan refuses to say the first word this time, having already taken lunch, and also Luhan’s hand. Just because he passed the first test does not guarantee a pass on the second.

Jongin was right to trust, because Luhan refuses to be capable of hurting him, hurting them in the isolation of a bubble, but here, he insists on exposure, openness, a wrong move would be the spark on slathered gasoline. 

Yifan’s grip tightens, gasoline reduced into water mass, tinkling waves crashing against rocks as his fork carves into dessert. Right. Luhan had never been good at being a spark, more like droplets. And no matter how much ash churns in his coffee, the result he drinks is still just bean and cow juice.

“How does the cake taste?” 

A heartbeat, two. Luhan passes.

He allows himself a breath as Yifan smiles, confidence too comfortable and available. It’s almost scary how all-encompassing trust could be.

“I told you that you were already good.” Yifan insists once again, the idiotic reason they spend today’s session in the cafe, no longer hidden away contraband. Even as they sit, there’s no true need for Yifan, no way to save everyone if Luhan does fail, no way to help in continuation. 

Perhaps Luhan should start considering reclassifying these sessions with other synonyms, but time flows and that is an issue further down the river. Yifan knows, though, snatching thoughts out of air and off Luhan’s face with each breath.

“And if you really want to know, just taste it yourself.”

“Fine.” 

Sweetness blended before and after sea salt tastes so much better, in Luhan’s opinion.


	8. Chapter 8

White. 

Blue.

Black.

Grey.

Navy.

Small words, small thoughts.

Small thoughts are safe, even if there is not enough in small thoughts. Even if he spent his life in long, complicated, tangled thoughts about the word that turns out not that complicated after all. Even if he doesn’t need to use small thoughts.

But they said to stick to small thoughts, so he sticks to small thoughts. On most occasions, due to machines unable to read them, and him unable to keep to small thoughts. He keeps to long thoughts of proof and existence and being, and he can take a few about colours and situations in replacement. 

Hospitals are stifling with endless deadly white, therapy is humiliating in the way that forgetting 8+6 is 14 is, and he has to stick to small thoughts. But he recovers, a siren sings in his dreams of comfort rather than despair, and he stays.

Perhaps he could leave. Perhaps he could get up and vanish, though not this second, in a few, but perhaps he could go home, drudge up the word loved and apply it to a few people and seek their comfort. He’s not used to it, and reused tape never sticks the same way as it does the first time. Perhaps he could leave, though not right now, but that does not guarantee his recovery or the students he leaves. Just a bit longer, and they’ll tell him to leave, back to the proximity of the campus, and the long complicated thoughts he would need to sort through from not only himself, and he cannot wait. 

But for now, there are footsteps, and a white door that opens. Visitors again.

One was more expected than the other, as things in pairs tend to be, but they are interconnected far too much, as things in pairs tend to do. He can’t say he appreciates the faces, fresh sun after too long in fluorescent replacements, but he needs it. They both do.

Luhan looks better, no longer as untouchable with magic favouring, anchored down in part by the hand in his. There is a bloom of petals drifting around his hands, no longer floating in the waves of his hair, as these are clearly a gift instead from him.

“You look better, Luhan.” He says, voice wringed as all things that survived a tsunami tend to be. “Thank you for paying the hospital bills, you didn’t need to.”

That realisation had been a long string of complicated thoughts before he was ready for them, but now he is, having finished digesting and sorting them out slowly.

“It is unnecessarily cruel for me to assign you blame.” He continues, before Luhan could attempt again at what very well seems like martyrism crossed with apology. “Unless you did not use the time to reflect and improve, in which I would have to be cruel and assign you blame.”

“I have it under control.” Luhan speaks, and he does not go insane.

It’s nice to hear Luhan’s voice, quiet, sturdy, flowing sand creating art, a little boat on a little honey sea, bobbing along, an image that is capable of being stared at for hours upon end. It pales in comparison to the magic that once crackled around, Renaissance compared to contemporary recreation, yet it’s still nice.

“Then good. I am now one of the very few number of humans who has heard a siren’s voice and lived to tell the tale, even if I may still have a few weeks before I could return to class.”

This gains a smile, simple and apple crisp.

‘Professor Chung?” 

Names are tricky things, long and complicated thoughts, and he had not bothered with those yet, despite how much they told him about it. He is not Professor Chung yet, but he could probably be him, just for Luhan now.

“Yes, Luhan?”

“Thank you.”

**Author's Note:**

> This certainly got a lot longer than I expected it would. But I do have ideas for other little things in this au, so maybe stick around(?) 
> 
> But thanks for reading! Comments are greatly appreciated.


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